An RFQ is a process where a customer requests a quotation from specific suppliers. A customer can be a company or public entity and the supplier can be a producer or contractor. Furthermore, the RFQ line items to be quoted can be either goods, services, or a mixture of both.
Ultimately the customer’s decision-making process is based on the information submitted in the quote for price, payment terms, delivery terms, delivery time, quality requirements, and other such minimum qualifying criteria.
The customer can include information in the RFQ of their preferred requirements, but the supplier can choose to quote whichever terms they want. However, a supplier is more likely to have their quote approved if they meet the terms offered by the customer.
It’s common to use templates which can be in the format of word documents, excel forms, and PDFs. Attachments and other supporting documents can be in a variety of forms depending on the software used to create them, for example, technical drawings made in CAD software submitted in DWG format.
Some companies have RFQ submission forms integrated into their website or use 3rd part portal systems that allow the supplier to log in to submit their quote. Still, to this day, the most common mechanism for communication between customers and suppliers is email, with the most typical format being an excel form with general and product-specific information. Supporting files are added to the email as attachments, and the email body contains an appropriate, professional introduction and a brief explanation of the RFQ.
Sending professional-looking documentation as a customer or supplier is always a good idea, as is having a standardized way of working. This will not only benefit your team but will also improve the efficiency of working with the same partners in the future. Often this pre-business, strategic data process can be overlooked meaning that a company has no evidence to demonstrate why certain decisions were made. Do you have a dedicated set of tools and a standardized way of working with RFQs and quotes?
At AirFaas we work extremely closely with our users to understand the features we should develop that will not only solve their own personal pain points, but that will also support current and future users. Simultaneously, we have a roadmap that stretches into the distant future that aspires to build a world-leading procurement solution that can be used (and afforded) by small and medium-sized enterprises and multi-national corporations alike.
If your business is being a local partner and expert in purchasing goods on behalf of a customer you need a way to monitor the value of the purchases you conduct, and bill the customer based on a negotiated commission rate. Now AirFaas streamlines this process by giving you the tools to create a service or commission order between the customer company and your company.
You can define multiple commission tiers, and transparently share the necessary data with your customer. You will also have insight into cumulative totals for the calendar year and have the ability to analyze all the data in the AirFaas reporting section.
Use the main search function and navigate to a customer or suppliers company page in AirFaas. Scroll to the bottom of the page and now you can set a default VAT percentage that is automated to invoicing.
When creating an invoice there is the automation of the invoice due date based on the payment terms selected.
A pop-up window will inform you if any of the above-stated fields do not match the default setting defined behind a company.
As companies digitalize more and more processes it’s important to utilize the productivity savings available by integrating the other systems they use. We have recently developed accounts receivable integrations for both Procounter and Smart accounts.
We noticed that in the shipment and receipts page actions there were a lot of buttons for various processes, some thought there were too many buttons! We have therefore created a new menu that contains all the PDF and Excel files that can be created in this section of AirFaas. For the sake of a peaceful and harmonized system, we also added this PDF and Excel section to all other sections of AirFaas.
You can now easily convert currencies in AirFaas orders and invoices using an API from the European Central Bank (ECB). The data provided is based on the previous day’s exchange rate.
We have edited and removed some column headings in the order table to ensure the most important data is visible without having to scroll horizontally.
We have added the ability to define both loading and discharge destinations. This data will appear in order-related documentation.
Teimme minijulkaisun valmiiksi juuri parahulteisesti ennen lomien alkua! Älä huoli jos et ehdi niistä nauttimaan vielä lomia edeltävinä päivinä. Uudet toiminnot odottavat sinua myös lomien jälkeen!
Olemme parantaneet tilausnäkymien tietoja ja samoin raportoinnissa. Lisäksi olemme tehneet korjauksia ja parannuksia siellä ja täällä. Lue alla koko lista julkaisun sisällöstä.
A mini release before the Finnish holiday season comes into full force? Why not! Some of you won’t even get the chance to use the feature improvements and enjoy the fixes – but rest assured that when you return to work you will be able to continue the good times when logging into AirFaas.
We’ve tweaked the data visible in the orders and reporting section to display received amounts, and tied up a few loose ends to ensure that the new quotations section is on point. But that’s not all, read all the developments below.
From the order page, you can now see received amounts when pushing the shipment data button in the lines section of the page.
Batch prices are now available to view in quote PDF forms. If you have received or submitted a quote for different batch sizes the price data is visible on its own page in the quote PDF.
To ensure that sales and purchasing reporting give users a definitive insight into the data they are analyzing we have added the received and unreceived line amounts along with the line number used in the original order.
The linked items section can be found at the bottom of each process page and contains data and links to all associated and linked processes. Linked shipments and receipts now show both the shipment and delivery date.
A brand new quotations section will ensure that customers and suppliers can communicate about request for quotations (RFQs) and submit quotations in a fully digitalized and automated way. The data can also be analyzed in the AirFaas reporting section.
We also have a whole host of treats for existing users based on their feedback and look forward to continuing to develop the system in close cooperation – you know who you are!
AirFaas is an ecosystem in which either party can edit information such as ship by dates in purchase orders (POs) and sales orders (SOs). We live in a time of supply chain uncertainty, so being able to monitor delivery performance is ever more vital. Currently, AirFaas supports both PO and SO delivery performance by order (header) or line data. This data is calculated by the ship by date that is currently associated with an order.
However, to be able to analyze PO and SO delivery accuracy on an even deeper level we had a request from users to add the PO and SO delivery accuracy defined against the originally agreed ship by date and the current need by date (the date the customer needs to receive the goods by).
This means that users can now follow delivery accuracy by order lines, based on the current ship by date, original ship by date, and the current need by date, as well as delivery accuracy by orders based on the current ship by date.
This data can be reviewed in the sales and purchases reporting section of AirFaas from the overview tab. You can either analyze aggregated data for all customers and suppliers or view the KPIs for each customer or supplier individually.
We wanted to improve both the functionality and usability of the quotations section of AirFaas, so the first place to start was redesigning the quotations page layout. We have harmonized the quotations and RFX sections and changed the format that the quotation lines are shown in the table.
The batch sizes function allows users to create specifications, send RFQs and submit quotations based on multiple price tiers per product based on the quantity ordered.
For example, when creating an RFQ you can set batch sizes for a line to any value, for example, a batch size “≥” (greater than or equal to) 1, 10, 100, etc. This data is included in the RFQ and then a supplier can fill out their price for the product based on multiple different batch sizes.
You can easily turn quotes received from suppliers into quotes that you send to your customer with a margin added. You can set the margin for all lines in a quote or add different margins for different lines. Moreover, you can import supplier prices for all quoted lines in a project and easily create a customer quote with the desired margin.
When you receive an RFQ in AirFaas (or add it on behalf of your customer) you can export the RFQ XLS file that is automatically generated in AirFaas, add your price data and re-upload the document as a quote. This simplified process flow ensure maximized efficiency due to the increased standardization of and interoperability of forms in AirFaas.
Similarly, the quotations XLS can be downloaded either from the page actions of the corresponding RFQ or from the page actions when creating the quote. The XLS that you download can have price information added for single units or for batches.
Notifications for RFQs have been improved to show a log with date and time stamps for each update.
Based on user feedback we have added the PO reference number and SO reference number to email notifications.
We wanted to give a well-needed facelift to all the PDF documents that you can produce in AirFaas, such as quotations, sales orders, purchase orders, shipping documentation (packing lists, pallet specifications, pallet labels, etc.), invoices, and nonconformities.
The changes include minor changes in font type and size as well as overall layout improvements.
When you download the excel from the order tracker we have included a shipping status per line to better support users in reporting the delivery status of their orders. This means you can now see the quantity that has been shipped and unshipped per line.
To allow quality managers to stay on top of nonconformity statuses the nonconformity tracker now shows the date a nonconformity was closed by the supplier, the customer, and both parties.
Increased automation means less manual work. Now, when sending an RFQ with associated files, the AirFaas File Manager automatically sets the validity (and therefore expiry) of shared files to be the same date as the RFQ validity period. Files can be downloaded by suppliers up to the validity date.
Can’t find that message? Now you can! Open the message hub and navigate to the search tab, type in any word, and view a list of the messages that contain the search variable.
The main search function in AirFaas can support you in finding products, projects, orders, nonconformities, companies, shipments, invoices, customer and supplier RFQs, quotes, pricelists, warehouse transactions, and files. Based on user feedback we are looking to improve the search results with minimal data inputted.
We begin by refining the RFQ search functionality.
Use a tick box to define if a part is sellable when building a specification in a project. For example, you may only sell the main part of an assembly and do not wish to define the price for every subassembly or component, or vice versa.
AirFaas included an MVP of UOM capabilities in February 2022. We’re now pleased to announce the development of conversion tables that automate how the data is displayed depending on how you utilize UOMs.
For example, If you purchase small electrical components made up of 1000 pieces per reel, you can set the UOM as 1000EA, and quantity 1, price 1000€ on a purchase order. The conversion table will then automate the calculation in both the order PDF and in the reporting section to display the unit amount as 1 and the unit cost as 1€.
Message Hub – Page flicker reduction.
AirFaas on jälleen kehitellyt uusia toimintoja käyttäjien tarpeisiin perustuen. Lue blogi ja näe mitä uutta on tarjolla!
Valmistelemme samaan aikaan suurempaa päivitystä tarjouskyselyprosesseihin. Tämä julkaisu saadaan näillä näkyvin valmiiksi huhtikuun loppuun mennessä.
Tämä julkaisu sisältää parannuksia raportointiin, varastotoimenpiteisiin ja yleisiä korjauksia.
We are preparing a HUGE release this Spring with a focus on giving our users improved digital tools to be able to handle quotations and respond to requests for quotations efficiently. The feature set will include tools for creating, comparing, approving, rejecting, analyzing, and communicating about quotes.
This month’s update focuses on improving purchasing and sales reporting for our users and ensuring that you can easily analyze data. Let’s take a look at the new features, improvements, and fixes.
When creating a purchase order (PO) you can define if a line is shippable or not. For example, you can add shipping and handling fees to your PO and you don’t need them to show in certain shipping documentation. Now the lines marked as not shippable will show in the order tracker as such.
Download the excel and open the sheet that contains the lines. You will see a shippable column and each cell will display yes/no.
All data is organized in chronological order and the layout is standardized across reporting sections.
The shipping status of each order is visible in the header sheet of the excel download of the order tracker report.
When you download the excel from the order tracker we have removed the timestamps associated with the order date, ship by date, and due date. This will allow for easier sorting and presentation of data.
You can add a part to your warehouse by searching your product database. The products are displayed so that the default product is at the top of the list, with the following products being listed in order of creation date, with the newest first.
I work with what we at Reaktor call Strategy & Business Design. It is a modern form of management consulting combining business strategy, Design Thinking and Lean Startup methodologies and mindsets into a creative yet critical approach to crafting business viability.
My focus areas include business strategy and innovation, evidence-based decision-making and data-driven business, and product business and service business models. I have worked with clients in Helsinki, Amsterdam, Dubai, Tokyo, and Stockholm, in industries from industrial equipment and airlines to luxury fashion and hospitality. My broader domain is using digital technology to build and develop business in a customer value-driven way.
A start-up like culture of innovation is a must-have rather than a distinguishing asset in many industries. This is particularly true for information industries such as finance and media, where the entire business formula of value creation, capture, and delivery is fundamentally changing with what digital technology enables. More generally speaking, there is hardly any industry in which digital technology would not have an impact on the business environment. An industry may be substantially physical but still be heavily affected.
Take hospitality as an example, in which the core offering is physical by necessity. Yet from the paying customer’s point of view, the nowadays non-physical part of discovery, search and booking, have to a significant extent been digitized and overtaken by online travel agents (OTAs) familiar to most of us. This layer in the full service stack takes a rough 20% cut of the booking value, which means that it corresponds to roughly 20% of the value created in a hotel stay.
What tends to happen in similar industry transformations is that any value creation component that can be digitized will be. The key distinction is that this makes it near-infinitely scalable, which in turn turns these components into software plays and that is a game that is played at a whole different speed and intensity than most physical plays.
And this is where a start-up like culture of innovation becomes crucial. It is the only way to stay in this fast-paced game, let alone gain an edge in it. Progressive companies have realized this and are building in-house innovation and development capabilities similar to what we know from start-ups. One should remember that being innovative in this way is not about building everything in-house, but about being smart about what distinctive capabilities to build in-house, and what to source as software tools and services, and then being able to change operations and ways of working to take advantage of what all of it enables.
Decisions turn into business value over time. What matters is not the outcome of a decision, but the quality of the decision. Across industries, businesses, and operations, decisions are made each day regardless of the extent to which they are data-supported. This is something to keep in mind when debating the merits of data-supported decision-making. If data sophistication is weak, so is the decision-making. Some decisions have little risk or consequence while others may have a very significant impact.
Typically and naturally more effort is put into high-impact decisions, which may require significant amounts of data and intellectual work. This makes sense, but it is often beneficial to think about where there is potential for improvement in the ratio between decision impact and effort. It may just be the case that some rather repetitive and seemingly low impact everyday decisions may show significant potential for business improvement.
This is where solutions such as AirFaas may prove their value. It may come in the form of superior decisions due to better data and automated decisions, but also in the form of lower effort due to an automated process. And with a progressive approach, such solutions may enable entirely new ways of working and scalability that would be impossible with human constraints. The right mindset, the right data, and the right tools may really be what sets a business apart from its competitors going forward, regardless of industry.
At that point, I had tracked my entire wardrobe and everything I wore every day for three years. I did this in order to unveil the actual cost of each different garment as measured by Cost Per Wear (CPW). One of my key learnings is that the price of a garment tells us close to nothing about its cost performance. A cheap piece that is rarely worn can be much more expensive than an expensive one that is used frequently. This is hardly surprising, and the logic is really simple.
From a financial perspective, the takeaway is that we can gain a lot by shifting our thinking about clothes from consumables, to durables, and even to assets. I have since opened up my service to the public and now have quite a few other users doing the same tracking. I see the same patterns of cost performance as for myself. I treat this as a collective effort in understanding and betterment.
Roughly the same goes for the environmental impact. I see cases where one piece of garment outperforms another by a factor of 3.5x, but is only twice as expensive. This means the more expensive garment is actually cheaper in use, but it also means that for each expensive piece produced, we will have to produce 3.5 cheap ones. The more expensive piece may, of course, have a somewhat higher environmental impact due to its superior durability, but it is hardly 3.5 times more. So I believe it should be fairly safe to say that in this case the more expensive piece is also the more environmentally sustainable one.
To me, the overall key learning from the tracking with all these other people is that there tends to be a rather large gap between how we think we use our clothes, and how we actually use them. That means even the most reasonable person is incapable of improving. This goes to show the value real data can play in not only optimizing things as they are, but looking at them in a new perspective in order to take a step-change to a whole new level.
Some parts of fashion are already service based. As in many other domains, high-end rarely-used assets have been service based for many years and popularized at scale by companies such as Rent the Runway. Sustainably progressive brands such as Sweden’s Houdini Sportswear, have introduced rentals a few years back in order to optimize for use rather than sales at the system level. These are mainly constrained to one use case (e.g. a party dress) or a brand.
I think the real potential lies in the system level that spans brands and categories. One model I find particularly promising is Sweden’s Hack Your Closet, who acquire high quality pre-loved women’s clothes and provision to customers as a personally curated monthly service. This solves the problematic tradeoff between the demand for frequent use of a single garment (in order to get high utilization) with the very typical demand for style variation. In essence, the model separates use and ownership, which solves the issue at the system level, i.e. across users as opposed to for a single user.
In summary, I believe some parts of fashion will be service based but not all. What I do both hope and believe is that we will start to properly transition away from fast fashion towards more durable garments, coupled with more efficient and liquid secondary markets. Then we don’t need to unbundle use and ownership (as a service model does), but still get the benefits of durability as proven by my project.
To someone who takes pride in cultivating integrative thinking and an open mind, that is a great question. In this regard, “difficult” and “challenging” are good things. I have read a lot of behavioral economics and cognitive science around thinking and biases. I don’t claim to be on top of the “I’m not biased bias” as Adam Grant put it, but I try to stay keenly aware of my biases. That makes reading any book however provoking or challenging an endeavor of curiosity rather than conflict.
Having said that, there is one recent book that really challenged me in a very useful way: The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous, by Joseph Henrich, 2020. It is an excellent account of how the co-evolution of psychology and culture created the peculiar Western mind (WEIRD is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). It was a thought-provoking read that uncovered some hidden assumptions and biases about what is culturally “normal”.
Self: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (Jonathan Haidt, 2012)
Career: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (David Epstein, 2019)
Fun: Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold (Stephen Fry, 2017)
We had a couple of improvements that we just couldn’t wait to go live with. Hopefully, this helps your week to get off to a great start!
AirFaas on jälleen kehitellyt uusia toimintoja käyttäjien tarpeisiin perustuen. Lue blogi ja näe mitä uutta on tarjolla!
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